Blackmail is an evil action and I do admire anyone with the courage to confront the consequences of not submitting to the threats of exposure.
One wonders how many politicians would have the guts that David Agius has shown in confronting the pressure of a revelation that could jeopardise his promising career.
However, this story has uncovered other interesting insights. I first read the news item on the court proceedings on Wednesday, which Nationalist MP David Agius had instigated, in The Times.
Jo Said was arraigned in court accused of attempting to blackmail the MP last February. A charge he is denying.
It is of course up to the court to decide whether Mr Said is guilty or not. But why would David Agius have brought to more public attention something that would damage his reputation?
Some would say he should have let sleeping dogs lie.
According to The Times, prosecuting officer Angelo Gafá told the court that in February he was asked to investigate numerous e-mails that Mr Said had sent Mr Agius entitled “The time is up”.
The messages claimed that Mr Agius had cheated at an economics exam at the University and that there were corrupt practices within the Nationalist Party.
Now corruption was a big issue at the last general election, yet the Labour Party still failed to win, despite many misgivings among the electorate. But that is another story.
There are currently 13 libel cases filed by the Prime minister Lawrence Gonzi and members of the Cabinet against the Labour Party.
The cases were instituted before the general election after the MLP put up a billboard carrying pictures of the ministers and alleging corruption.
In the alleged blackmail case, Inspector Gafá told the court that Jo Said told him that he had met Mr Agius in a café in Attard, where he told him about corruption within the Nationalist Party. A claim David Agius has rejected.
Now, whereas The Times does not expand on the university exam cheating, L- Orizzont does. It is an important detail because this is not just an allegation; the university substantiates it.
According to L-Orizzont, David Agius did indeed cheat in his International Trade and Economics university exam. This was confirmed by the university with the investigating police officer.
The first time he was caught he was allowed to resit the exam, but he was again caught with notes written on a ruler. But instead of being disqualified, he got a pass, albeit with a D grade.
Now as much as I respect David Agius for his stand against being blackmailed, his obtaining a degree, albeit a poor one, despite being caught cheating twice is worrying and raises serious issues regarding the way the university was run at that time.
How many more Malta university degrees are not worth the paper they are written on? There should definitely be a genuine enquiry. If anything, to give all degree holders, who earned it, credibility.

Useless, but sound
Austin Gatt, the minister responsible for transport, among other things, makes a lot of sense, but he does tell us what we all having been harping on about for a long time.
I suppose we should be grateful that at last the deficiencies at the Transport Authority (ADT) are being recognised.
But is the minister capable of actioning all the bright ideas on the ADT he came up with in parliament on Wednesday?
For example, what happened about the bus emissions? Yes, OK, he got us Smart City, but that still has some way to go before we can gauge the real picture of its success.
And he has pushed IT use, although it apparently is causing havoc with our school children’s health and social skills. According to an HSBC report, “the intensive use of new communication technologies has been associated with lower levels of self-rated health (what on earth is self-rated health?), poor sleep habits, violence and hostility, musculoskeletal problems, loneliness and social isolation, as well as increased overweight and obesity through the displacement of physical activity.”
Read last Wednesday’s column if you want to know more about the report.
Anyway, Minister Gatt has got big plans for the ADT, a complete overhaul in fact. And boy does it need it.
The authority’s main problem was it had various conflicting commercial interests. Besides, it is tied to five directorates, which work with little or no co-ordination between them, he said.
Well we had noticed, and it is not the only entity where lack of co-ordination has been in evidence.
The minister decried the fact that enforcement at the ADT had lost its teeth (did it ever have any?) because there is no section responsible for it.
Has it taken so long to work this out? The Authority has been going since 1989, and lack of enforcement has been filling newspaper pages ever since.
Now we are told no one has been directly responsible for it. Why does this not surprise me?
The minister said that the ADT had good architects that designed roads but there was no concept of management and there was a lack of qualified managers in network infrastructure development. There is nobody versed in budgets and project management.
How many chairmen and CEOs has the authority had so far? Did none of them work this one out, and did the government not appoint them?
Does the complete overhaul involve appointing people for their abilities rather than their political affiliations?
According to a comment sent to The Times online, even the architects are not up to scratch. “Why do I find it impossible to open the car door, in many locations, due to the excessive height of the pavement relative to the street level?”
I am sure many will agree. Worse still is when the door does open, but gets jammed halfway. Another, perhaps more appropriate comment read: “I always wondered whether ADT stands for ‘Awtorita’ Dwar it-Trasport’ or for ‘Anarkija u Dizastru Totali’.”
I would have named the people who made the comments, but recently someone whose quote I referred to as very apt took umbrage that I named him, because I did not ask for his permission.
I politely informed him that since he submitted his name on the internet it was public domain. But who needs the hassle? I would have thought that people should get upset if they do not get credit for witty comments they submit.
Anyway, back to Minister Gatt’s battering of the ADT. “The authority does not acknowledge that its clients are the road users... it needs to find the delicate balance between the owner of a vehicle and the pedestrian and the public and private sector... it has different policies for white and red mini-buses... closed shop for taxis and hearses, where the market economy in such cases worked in reverse because many were selling their licences at exorbitant prices and there are too many unwritten rules and everything is at the clerk’s discretion, like the valuation of imported vehicles.”
There was more, but I think you get the general idea. Bad policies, no enforcement, abuse and a serious lack of skills in budgeting, project management and infrastructure network development.
Yet, I don’t believe the minister had his tongue in his cheek when he concluded, “the authority was sound but needed a re-organisation”.

pamelapacehansen@gmail.com